The ability to easily add tables to your pages can be really handy. Tables are great for sorting and presenting data to people in a format that can make your information easier to understand.
WordPress provides users with a great visual editor, but there are some things that the default editor doesn’t let you do, such as letting you easily create tables.
Although you can add tables manually to your content in WordPress if you have knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), for many non-technical WordPress users, this is not a realistic option.
Fortunately, you can do just about anything you can imagine on a WordPress site with plugins, and adding tables is no exception.
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to easily create and add tables into your posts and pages without requiring knowledge of HTML or CSS or coding skills.
Adding Tables In Posts And Pages In WordPress
Follow the tutorial below to learn how to easily add tables in WordPress using a FREE plugin called TablePress.
TablePress – WP Plugin
A powerful and time-saving WordPress plugin for creating, editing and managing tables in WordPress is TablePress.
TablePress requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, etc. The plugin provides a simple user interface that allows you to easily edit your table data. You can add any kind of data, even formulas to your tables.
An additional JavaScript library can be used to include features like pagination, sorting, filtering, and more for visitors. You can easily include the tables into your posts and pages using shortcodes and even display these inside text widgets.
A table can also be imported and exported from/to CSV files (e.g. from Excel), HTML files, and JSON.
The plugin was created by Tobias Bäthge and is licensed as Free Software under GNU General Public License 2 (GPL 2).
How To Use TablePress WP Plugin – Step-By-Step Tutorial
To create and manage tables in WordPress posts or pages, install and activate the TablePress plugin.
You can download this plugin here:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress
Or install it directly from your own Dashboard …
After installing and activating the plugin, a new menu item will get added to your WP admin menu called TablePress …
Click on TablePress and select Plugin Options from the submenu list …
The “Plugin Options” page controls your plugin styling and display settings …
For example, in the “User Options” section, you can change where the TablePress menu entry appears on your admin menu.
Normally, the menu item appears around the middle of your menu bar. If you plan to use this plugin a lot, then you can easily position the menu option near the top of the admin menu by selecting “Top-level (middle)” in the User Options > Admin menu entry dropdown menu …
The TablePress menu entry now shows closer to the top of the admin menu …
You can also specify other plugin options in the “Plugin Options” section, such as table formatting styles, default language, etc. Leave all default options as they are if you don’t need to change things in this section.
With TablePress, you create edit and format your tables inside the plugin screen. Tables are then added via a shortcode into your text. Your tables will then display after your content is republished.
The benefit of doing this is that you can easily modify the data inside your tables without having to manually edit your posts and pages. The plugin then updates all of your table information in all locations where the table has been added to your content.
To add a new table select TablePress > Add New Table …
Type in the table name, an optional description, and the number of rows and columns you would like for the new table into the “Add New Table” form in the Add New tab, and click on the Add Table button to create your new table. You can edit the name, description and size of any tables you create at anytime…
Once the new table has been created, it will get added to the “All Tables” list and be assigned a unique Shortcode ID …
The TablePress shortcode allows you to easily insert tables anywhere inside a post or page simply by inserting or copying and pasting the shortcode wherever you want your table to display …
Once you have created a new table, adding content to it is really easy.
In the “Table Content” section, click inside the cell and either type or paste the content you want to display. You can add text, images and HTML formatting to your content (e.g. add bold text, insert links, etc …)
Once your new table is created, displays a number of additional options that will allow you to configure your table.
For example, in the “Table Options” area you can select the first row of your table to be the table header and the last row of the table to be the table footer, make the background of consecutive rows alternate in colour, highlight a row when a visitor hovers their mouse over the table, print the table name and description above or below the table, and more …
You can also edit your table after it has been created in the “Table Manipulation” area. You can insert links and images, hide, show, insert, delete and duplicate selected columns and rows, add new rows and columns, combine cells, etc …
You can also enable JavaScript library features in your tables that will allow visitors to sort, filter and search your table content, set the number of table rows showing on your post (and let users specify the number of rows displayed), display table information, etc …
You can see how your table looks anytime, by clicking the Preview button …
A preview window will open in your browser allowing you to preview your table. Certain features such as the JavaScript options are disabled in preview mode, but will display once your post or page is published …
Remember to click the Save Changes button when finished to save your table data …
To view a list of all your tables TablePress > All Tables …
All your tables are listed here. You can edit, see shortcodes, copy, export, delete and preview tables …
How To Use The Shortcode
You embed a table into your content using the TablePress shortcode.
Get the shortcode for your tables by clicking on the Show Shortcode menu item under the table title to get the shortcode …
The plugin also adds a menu item to your WordPress editor. This allows you to easily insert tables into your posts and pages while working on your content.
Place your cursor where you want the table to be embedded then click the TablePress menu icon …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress Visual Editor Screen
Note: You can also add a table when working inside the “Text” area of the editor …
TablePress Menu Icon In WordPress HTML Editor Screen
Clicking on the menu icon displays a list of all your tables.
Select the table you want to embed in your post or page and click Insert Shortcode …
Your TablePress shortcode will be added …
Publish your post or page to view your table …
As stated earlier, one of the great things about TablePress is that you can edit the contents of your table after publishing the table without having to edit your post or page. Just tweak the content in the plugin area, then save your new table settings and refresh your post to view the updated information.
Another great time-saving feature of the TablePress plugin, is that if you plan to keep adding data to an existing table, just export your current table, then add new information, make changes, etc. You can then re-import your table file with the news changes and your table content will be automatically updated throughout your site.
To export a table, click on TablePress > Export a Table in your main menu …
In the “Export Tables” section, choose the table(s) you want to export (tip: select multiple tables by holding down the “Ctrl” key), then select the Export Format you want(e.g. CSV) and any other export options you’d like to make and click on the Export Table button to download the file to your hard drive …
After editing and resaving your file, you can then easily re-import the table into WordPress.
To import a table, select TablePress > Import a Table …
TablePress can import tables from existing data, such as CSV file data, from a spreadsheet application, an HTML file, or its own JSON format. You can also import existing tables from the WP-Table Reloaded plugin
To import a table, select and enter the import source in the “Import Tables” section. You can also import multiple tables from compressed (ZIP) files and choose whether to import tables as a new table or to replace an existing table.
To learn more about using TablePress, including where to access the plugin documentation for extra features, get technical support, contact the plugin developer, etc., click on the “About Tab” in the plugin admin section, or select TablePress > About TablePress …
As you can see, TablePress is a very useful time saving plugin that is free and will help you easily create and insert tables into your WordPress posts and pages.
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